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Iron boob on the shoulder technique

I went to Chinatown with the kids yesterday for dinner. It seems out of the way, given the fact that I was there earlier in the day...but I had bought a day link pass so I figured I might as well use it. I usually take the kids out to eat in Wednesdays because I teach Nativity and we are already out and about.

So we got baos to eat from May's Cake House for desert and then headed over to Chinatown Cafe. These are the closest businesses to Tufts Medical T stop if you are wondering "Why Here?"

I flashed back to when I lived at the Kung Fu school in Tai Tung and realized that very rarely would I travel to the other side of Chinatown.

I would wake up, walk over to the bank, work, and then go back the Tai Tung Direction.

I ran into a whole bunch of people I knew especially from when Noah went to BCNC. I also ran into an old Chinese school teacher. We sort of were antagonistic toward each other that year. But we were all friendly now. Here are some things I realized.

Your "enemies" in Chinatown... end up being very close to you when you step outside of that environment either through time or space and in a way they are your family, much the way people from your Herng Ha in China or your hometown are family, Hing Dai, regardless of how close they actually are to you.

Another though was actually crazy because either because of spacing or whatever.... my ex teacher kind of put her boobs right on my shoulder when she was talking to me.

Now, if she were a younger woman I guess I would interpret that a certain way but as a woman of her age you could see it as some sort of maternal affection... which given our history with the arguing about me and my mom or whatever, may have been weird or perhaps I just got a glimpse as to why I was given a hard time in a tough love parenting sort of way. Or maybe she has since reinterpreted what actually happened and why.

However... if you were to use your imagination to expand upon the first thing that would come into your mind when thinking boob on the shoulder a la Japanese Manga humor.. I mean that would be an ENTIRELY different interpretation of my 4th grade experience. Lol! The cartoon version would focus in on that boob and have it bulging and it would be funny. In our American Culture though I think you just wouldn't even bother to mention that it happened. And I feel like Chinese Americans are even more uptight about stuff like that.

In fact going back to if this was a a young woman... this is a common technique used in bars in Asia, the smallest of boobs being used to request a larger tip. In fact I got this treatment in Taishan right up until it became clear that it was the Chinese guy I was with that was actually handling the paying and the tipping aspect, at which point the boobs were transferred from the white looking American guy over to the local Taishanese guy for requesting of said tip. I heard this is true in Vietnam and also at American establishments like Hooters. It is used so often that I would even go so far as to say that it is a service tip as recommended, trained and practiced as pouring tea with the other hand behind your back, and cooling the tea in a long stream without spilling.

So I'm just saying, old teacher putting boob on my shoulder can be interpreted many ways. Obviously I'm not tipping here, and there is some sort of affection being shown. In addition, her boobs were large enough that perhaps it was just a matter of space involved. Also there is the history and the age factor.

Really it doesn't mean anything but I feel like in terms of a story... it i s a funny detail not often mentioned in that sort of setting.

The more and more perspectives I get about the same events.. especially now that I actually hear more women's perspectives ....I realize that there are a lot of different ways to interpret the same event.

I'm not saying anything is intentional nor am I trying to read minds or what have you, but I will quote a Chinatown Sage by saying this... "There are many different versions of the truth."

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